~ A collection of thoughts on BIM for Structural Engineers

Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

Okay, seriously, who’s responsible for the time machine? I swear I just got back from RTC, and now it’s almost time for AU 2016. Some of this is probably due to the fact that, for the first time since I’ve been attending AU, it’s before Thanksgiving. The rest is because life and work have been running non-stop all year…and I don’t think it’s about to change! Better busy than bored, right?

Before I send a lot of visionary posts at you next week, with all the big ideas I’m sure we’ll hear at AU, here’s another small-but-important entry in the BIM Essentials series.

If you’re opening a workshared model with Revit Viewer, use Detach from Central.

At first glance, this sounds redundant. Why would you have to detach your model, when you can’t save your changes anyway?

As a reminder:

Viewer mode allows all functionality of Revit, except the following: save or save as in all cases; exporting or publishing modified projects; exporting or publishing any projects to a format containing model data that can be modified; or printing projects after changes are made.

If all you want to do is look at things, you don’t have to detach. But if you try to change something–cut a new section, rotate a 3D view, change Visibility Graphic overrides–while in Viewer mode, Revit will check back with the central model for permission first. And it won’t get it–because you’re in the viewer mode!

Detaching the model means it won’t try to check out objects, and won’t trigger that error.

Revit Viewer does try to warn you about that when you open a model, but we know not everybody reads every warning…

Side note: Even if you do detach, if you have linked models you’ll still get this warning. The dialog won’t tell you that it’s related to the link, but it is.

Maybe some of you have your own dedicated Revit licenses, so you don’t need to worry about this. But if you use network licenses (or if you have friends who do), and you use the Viewer when you don’t want to take up a license, keep this tip in mind!

Today’s tip is about making new endings and new beginnings…for lines of text in Revit.

Did you know you can manually insert line breaks into view titles and schedule text fields? All it takes is Ctrl+Enter. Here’s a view of a schedule before and after I inserted a line break:

It only looks like the second half of the line is gone–you can still access it with your arrow keys. And of course, you can see the entire text on the sheet, like this:

A similar trick works for view titles whose contents don’t wrap nicely in the default field width. The only thing to remember is that you have to use Ctrl+Enter in the Title on Sheet field, NOT the View Name field. Before & after:

Thanks to this feature, you don’t have to worry so much about the length of text fields in titles — just make them as long as possible and add line breaks later.

Okay, so this is not really BIM-related at all, but I haven’t posted here in over two months (sometimes life gets in the way of blogging) and when I found this I just had to share it. And if any of you have to create presentations, write training materials, or just put a lot of images in emails, you’ll like it as much as I do.

Here it is: Open up just about any Microsoft Office 2010 product (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint) and check out the Insert tab.

Did anyone else miss the fact that there’s a screenshot option right in plain view? I guess my gaze usually stops on “Picture.” And to be fair, if your window is small enough the icon may get collapsed into the mini-version:

Click on it, and you’ll get images of every open program you have. Pick one to drop in a full-size image of that window, or choose the “Screen Clipping” option to define your own area. (Note that the current program will minimize while you take your clipping.)

When you’re modeling structural framing in Revit, you often can just assign it to a level or reference plane to set its elevation.

But sometimes you need to move a beam up or down — maybe to accommodate a slab step, architectural element, or other framing condition.

There are (at least) two ways to achieve the above image.

The first is with the z-Direction Justification and Offset. If you change Justification to “other”, you can then specify a single value to offset the beam up or down.

The second is with the Start and End Level Offsets. You can use these to give the two ends of the beam different elevations.

Which to choose? Well, it depends. Here’s what you need to know:

z-Direction Justification/Offset

The analytical line for a beam adjusted in the z-Direction stays put on the original reference level or work plane. This might be what you want to have happen, if you’re going to be exporting your analytical model to a program like RISA, or it might not. You’ll have to decide.

You can only set one value, so it’s no good for sloped beams.

The z-Direction is relative to the beam, not the project. This means that if you have a beam with a rotated cross section, z-Direction offsets might not give you the result you’re looking for.

Start & End Level Offsets

With this method, the analytical line follows your beam. Again, this may or may not create the desired effect with your analysis software.

Each end can have a different offset, so you can create sloped framing.

HOWEVER, setting a start or end level offset AUTOMATICALLY detaches your framing from its work plane, and as far as I know you can’t get it back, even if the effect of the offsets keeps your framing parallel to its original plane.

Start/end offsets are relative to the level, so rotating your section keeps it more or less where it started. (Laterally, at any rate.)

Combined Methods

You can actually use both methods at the same time for even more control over the location of your framing. Here’s the beam above with Start, End, AND z-Direction offsets.

This post is definitely back-to-basics, but considering how much of Revit’s value is in its 3D capabilities, I thought I’d share a few of the tips I’ve picked up lately for navigating in the third dimension.

#1: Set pivot for 3D orbit

If you hold down the Shift key and middle mouse button, you can move the mouse to orbit around your 3D model. However, the default orbit pivot is probably not exactly where you’d like it to be. In this case, if I’ve zoomed in on a corner of my building. When I try to orbit around the corner, it rapidly disappears from view.

So instead, I’ll select an object near where I’d like my pivot point to be. Then when I use Shift-middle-pan, the view stays centered on my object.

#2: Align 3D view to 2D view

This is possibly my favorite use of 3D views. If you right-click on the View Cube in a 3D view, one of the options is “Orient to View”. You can pick one of your existing floor plans, elevations, or sections (or 3D views, although that one seems a little silly to me) and instantly get a cropped, 3D view of that 2D area.

You will probably need to orbit around it for the full 3D effect (possibly using tip #1), but it’s a great way to quickly clear your view of unnecessary geometry.

Right now I’m mostly using this in working views, tracking down columns and floors and such, but I think it won’t be too much longer before these kinds of 3D sections are common sights in our design documents.

#3: Make objects transparent

Another way to clarify your view is by making certain objects or categories see-through. In steel-framed structures, I often get away without using this, but as soon as you add concrete or masonry walls, interior structure gets a lot harder to see! So I go to Visibility Graphics and override the Transparency to something greater than 0 — 50% seems to work nicely. If you take it all the way to 100%, your objects become completely clear, but as long as you still have “Show Edges” checked in your Graphic Display Options, you’ll still be able to tell they’re there. (I wouldn’t recommend using both 100% transparency and hidden edges.)

Below are images with walls at 0% and 50% transparency — it’d be clearer if it weren’t a CMU building (or if I turned the edges off), but you get the idea.

I should point out that in 2012 and earlier, the Visibility Graphics dialog had two checkboxes for “Ghost Surfaces” and “Transparent”. In 2013, these have been merged into a single “Transparency” slider in the “Projection/Surface” category.